


Daring to Dream

by TAFKAB



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Cruelty, F/M, M/M, Mockery, Pining, Secret Crush, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-30 01:09:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10865904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TAFKAB/pseuds/TAFKAB
Summary: Nobody better try to fuck with Nurse Chapel when Dr. McCoy is around to protect her.  Nobody has to know the reason why, either.





	Daring to Dream

**Author's Note:**

> I love Christine Chapel. She gets a bum rap for being pathetic about her crush on Spock, and a lot of times the writers made her seem really pathetic and awful. But she's got a hell of a lot of courage and a hell of a lot of love, and let me tell you-- loving someone who doesn't love you back and knowing they never will isn't for the weak, especially not when everyone in the world knows how you feel. 
> 
> If you don't care for Chapel? "Horseman, pass by."

McCoy can tell what’s going on the minute he sees the little knot of crewmen cut their eyes at Chapel and put their heads together. He knows they haven’t noticed he’s nearby; he knows all he has to do is wait.

Christine goes about her duties efficiently, long legs pretty beneath her short-short skirt. She’s a model of efficiency, a damn good nurse. It’s a pity her secret got out after Psi 2000. She’s been paying for it ever since—even harder since she lost Roger Korby and still elected to stay aboard Enterprise. 

Sometimes people can be merciless, especially when they’re jealous—and people are jealous of Christine. The women think she’s too pretty; they envy her long legs and her ability to push just about everyone on board around whenever she wants to. 

The men don’t like her either, because she won’t give them the time of day. This group is mixed, men and women alike; the women titter.

“Gone and made a fool of herself over him again,” McCoy hears, and he knows they’re talking about his head nurse’s unfortunately public crush on Spock. Any time the first officer visits sickbay, the rumors go around for weeks afterward, and given his penchant for getting injured on away missions, that means they’re just about constant.

“Pathetic,” Ellers agrees, smug. “She needs to get over it already.”

McCoy drifts toward the door, getting ready to bite chunks out of them all.

It’s not just that Christine’s in his department, under his protection (though she is).

It’s not just that she’s a damn fine nurse (though she’s head and shoulders over any of his other staff except maybe Geoff).

It’s not even that she tries to be as professional as possible around Mr. Spock, and usually manages an admirable standard of decorum in spite of a couple of notable lapses (Psi 2000 being one; holding his hand when he was badly injured was another—but she didn’t know better then. None of them did except Geoff).

McCoy’s sympathy comes from another place altogether, at least some of it does. It comes from his own silent secret: his own stupid, pathetic, pitiable crush on Spock. He’s just got the advantage that nobody knows his secret yet; nobody’s figured him out. People are too busy staring at Chapel when her eyes follow Spock to notice that McCoy’s do the same. She’s just a little less guarded than he is, a little more prone to letting her emotions show, her heart pasted firmly on her sleeve. She just got caught out by that damn Psi 2000 virus. 

Still, she diverts unwanted attention away from McCoy. He feels pretty guilty about the way she fulfills that function, even though she’s doing it without realizing.

He pops around the corner, startling the four gossips, who jump apart guiltily.

“If you four don’t have anything better to do than gossip, I’m sure your department heads can find some work to assign you. Report to them right away.” He’s already got his fingers moving over his clipboard. He’ll ask Scotty to give Evans and Musser crawl duty; they can follow plumbing pipes all over the infrastructure looking for and repairing sewage and gray water leaks. There’s always something to find somewhere. 

Elleray is Spock’s; McCoy knows the first officer’s been looking for someone to assign to the biology lab, where she’ll spend the next month observing petri dishes containing ongoing bacterial growth experiments and documenting changes (or lack thereof) every five or ten minutes. Spock will appreciate the recommendation even if he doesn’t know the reason for it.

Martin’s his own corpsman to assign, and McCoy gives the man a smirk that leaves him pinch-faced and nervous. McCoy notes it’s been a long time since the ops crew have been examined for inguinal hernia; that’ll have to be brought up to current before the next round of general inspections can take place. A lot of them are behind on their prostate exams, too. McCoy makes a note that personnel are to employ manual palpation in both cases; it’s more reliable than the tricorder scans. He writes down the orders and hands them over. 

“Get started on that this afternoon,” he snaps, and watches as Martin hustles off.

Chapel’s long gone. McCoy clasps his hands behind his back and strolls down the hall, brooding. He regards the turbolift where she vanished, on her way to take a tray up to Lieutenant Martinez, who’s been under the weather ever since he took a bad shock while repairing a display panel in astrocartography. Martinez has an eye for Chapel; he’s just about recovered, but he’s still malingering a little, hoping she’ll notice him. 

McCoy wishes she would, but he knows better. 

He wishes Chapel could find someone who cares about her as much as she deserves. She’s a good person with a big heart and lots of love to give. She was faithful to Roger Korby, at least as far as he knows. She doesn’t deserve to be alone, but her daydreams are all she has, and just like him, she doesn’t seem to know how to let them go. 

He won’t be the one to begrudge them to her—especially not since his own are essentially the same. 

He’s certain she’s well aware that her hopes are just as foolish and unlikely as he knows his own are. She merely has the courage to own up to them and to hold her head high every day while the half the crew pities her and the other half snipes, whereas he… well. He hasn’t got any courage at all.

McCoy turns away from the turbolift and returns to sickbay, running one finger over the top of a cabinet and inspecting it for dust. Not a speck. Everything’s shipshape, everything’s sterile and perfect.

He looks at his stuffed lizard hanging on the wall. Bob’s all he’s got aside from his own secret dreams. A stuffed lizard, a failed marriage, and a beautiful stranger of a daughter who probably spends maybe ten or fifteen seconds a month maximum remembering he’s still alive. That's no better or worse than a dead robot husband who was getting it on with his androids before one of them disintegrated him. 

McCoy’s dreams are all he has that keep him going; they’re the only reason he’s got to get out of bed in the morning. He suspects maybe that’s true for Christine, too.

Nobody’s got any damn right to call anybody else foolish, misguided, or pathetic for daring to dream.


End file.
